Bounding Boxes

Suggestions and comments for Pandoras Box V5

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Bounding Boxes

Postby JustynR » Fri Jun 22, 2012 10:16 pm

I have been working on quite a few shows lately where I can not see the screens that I am controlling. One where I actually had to run a 1000' Fiber cable instead of Cat 5e to control my clients from a video truck.
If the cameras aren't on, or are busy, I can't see the walls or projectors.

What would be really nice would be something that we could set during the setup of the show that would show us some sort of bounding box - of different colours/shapes/sizes/thicknesses in the Preview of the Manager.
I can see the wireframe of the camera, but sometimes the screen is a wierd size or a weird shape. I am not so concerned about the shape, but I am sure there are one or two shows out there that it would be handy to have the capability for.

Even something as simple as adding a Graphic Layer to the Manager so we can put maybe a white JPEG on it and then use an inverted cropping Effect to shape it the way we need to. I have done this, the only downside is that when you reload the show, It will say that the Local Node cannot manifest because of an incompadibility.

I have fooled around with layers on a Client before, but actually scaling it in instead of being able to punch in a resolution and a pixel position to it is a little time consuming.
I am not sure where, but I have seen this on other systyems - a multi output switcher (not sure which one) - and it looked very nice and easy to work with. Once it is set up, you don't actually need to see your screens.


No rush, just saying... It'd be nice.

Thanks,

J
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Re: Bounding Boxes

Postby Martina Protze » Thu Jun 28, 2012 2:57 pm

Hi Justyn,
just recently, a colleague of mine was talking to a customer who had the same idea. I will look up if he already added this the idea to our list... hopefully we will have the next feature-come-true time within the next weeks *fingers crossed*
Martina Protze
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Re: Bounding Boxes

Postby malkuth23 » Thu Jun 28, 2012 6:53 pm

If we had the ability to make a layer not render to a specific camera this problem could be solved.

A graphic layer could be loaded with a mask and rendered in preview, but not seen by a (or all) camera(s).

This would also allow for the ability to do complicated blends involving custom softedges. Currently 2 copies of the video need to be played in order to use custom softedge. Layer routing helps with Servers, but not Players.

I would love to see this feature added!
Matthew Newman-Saul
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Re: Bounding Boxes

Postby Martina Protze » Fri Jul 06, 2012 11:55 am

Hi Matt,

I am sure, the first attempt is not possible, we cannot tell one layer to be rendered in two different ways.
To be honest I do not understand what you mean with custom softedge. I would love to understand that...

Best regards,

pS I have added this to the list, let`s see what the programmers come up with...
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Re: Bounding Boxes

Postby malkuth23 » Sun Aug 05, 2012 11:38 pm

When the softedge is not a straight line ie. the cap of a dome - the softedge is a png with a gradient to alpha.

When this is in place layer 1, playing video x.mxl can't come out of both outputs because the softedge is setup for only one output. This means that the video has to play 2x. Layer routing helps with this situation considerably, but it would still be valuable to be able to click a checkbox setting the render to only 1 output.

I know this is a strange request and could be a bit confusing to other users so it might not be ideal, but it would allow more power for these sorts of unusual situations.

Thanks!
-Matt
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Re: Bounding Boxes

Postby Markus Zeppenfeld » Mon Aug 06, 2012 10:05 am

Hi Matt,

some comments from my side:

1. If you do not show a video on one of the screens it is still the same work for the server as showing it on both outputs.
2. Did you think of using a circular mapping for a pole cap that you can still use bottom softedge in realtime and all flexibility without arranging special content!?
3. As both cameras are regarding the same 3d space it would be totally inconsistent to have layer visible within the global view and first camera, but not in the second one.

Nevertheless, Martina added your request to the list.
Markus
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